


A World Covered in Feathers

by Melkorstars (Vendetta23)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Established Relationship, Hallucinations, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Not bad ending, Parricide, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt, Violent Thoughts, kylo-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 04:01:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18865294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vendetta23/pseuds/Melkorstars
Summary: "Leave the mark. There's no healing, not from that"





	A World Covered in Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ
> 
> This fic depicts views of sensitive events (self-harm, attempted suicide) and character beliefs that would be considered problematic. Please read the tags with caution and proceed at your own risk, the images and feelings evoked in the text are not a walk in the park. Take care.

The blinding lights were the first thing to tell him something was wrong when he opened his eyes. It couldn’t be the end. There would be no incandescent beacon waiting for him at the end of his story.

Indeed, Kylo wasn’t dead, the sharp pain soon told him. If he hadn’t opened his eyes first, he would be able to hold on to his fantasy a bit longer. Pain, an eternity of it, was a believable ending, an acceptable one, a _desired_ one. But the light, it ruined it, for he knew he had _killed it_.

Half of his face was on flames, and when he lifted his arm to touch it, somewhere around his guts he felt his insides being perforated. Now he didn’t know anymore where all that pain came from, it spread like wildfire through his body, so he bathed in it, and let his arm go limp by his side.

Kylo looked around the ascetic white of the medical bay room. There was no medical droid in sight, which he knew was against protocol.

_If they left one in a room with you, it would just get destroyed._

His right hand flew to the IV needle buried in his left arm and ripped it out together with the tape keeping it in place. He tried to lift himself up, only to fall back on the bed, head spinning, the pain making him grunt through clenched teeth.

_You sound like an animal._

Kylo cleared his throat and took a deep ragged breath, he grabbed at the cold metallic supports by the sides of the bed and gave another pull. That’s when his fingers brushed against the restraints hanging from the metal bars. He sat up on the bed, both his hands flinching away from the restraints as if they had burned them. Turning his head to the small table right beside him, he saw two enveloped needles and a small flask full of transparent liquid.

_These are all for you. If you behave like an animal, they’ll treat you like one._

And then he remembered. He was marching down the bridge, taking quick steps away from the presence he was sensing. His name was called, not his name anymore, and he halted. _Why did you stop?_ He wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t stay to hear what his father had to say. _Come home_. Words that offered a better future, which was to Kylo a life sentence to the past. It terrified him, that all those years of running would end with him going back to where he started. It seduced him, the possibility that things could be different.

Either way, he couldn’t go back to a dead past, and he didn’t deserve a better future.

The order and the execution.

_Kill the light._

 

He buried his face on his hands, the cold stale air not filling his lungs despite all the breaths he was drawing in quick succession. When he saw his palms come back covered in slick, Kylo pushed himself out of the bed, losing his balance as soon as the soles of his feet touched the gelid floor. He fell to his knees, shaking badly, his ankle twisting into an uncomfortable position. So he crawled, dragging himself through the floor until he reached a slim door that would be the one to the bathroom. He slammed his hand on the sensor, not even waiting for the door to slide open entirely before stumbling back to his feet and dashing through the crack. Finally, he got to the sink where he gripped hard for support.

Kylo looked up and faced himself in the mirror. There was bacta smeared all over a horribly protruding scar that cut him across his face all the way down his neck. One of his hands reached for the white towel under the sink. He took a deep breath. The pain was blinding, white dots danced before his eyes and a loud screech punctured through his ears while Kylo scrubbed all the bacta from his fresh scar. He could _hear_ the thin skin that has just grown back over it bursting back open in some points.

_Tear yourself apart._

There wasn’t any bacta left for him to rub out, but he kept scraping at his skin, looking straight at his swollen, tear-filled eyes in the mirror.

_Leave the mark. There’s no healing, not from that._

Until his trembling fingers couldn’t hold the piece of cloth anymore. The towel fell on the edge of the sink and then slid to the ground, its pure white stained red and dark brown. Kylo clawed at the sink once more to keep his balance. He glanced up at the mirror, quickly averted his eyes, and then forced himself to look again. The girl in the forest had called him a monster.

_You certainly look like one now._

Now there was no way the scar would completely heal, leave no trace behind. Just like his actions, and their consequences. He would parade it everywhere he went, the first thing people would see when looking at his face.

_A warning sign. Beware, a monster._

No hiding from it even when he caught a glimpse of his reflection. He knew it would always be there, a reminder.

_You can’t grow out of that._

Kylo’s fingers twitched, aching to smash the mirror to a thousand pieces, along with the image he saw in it. But his hands stayed in place, and his eyes kept staring straight ahead.

_No, no, no, that would be too easy, you have to look._

The brownish slimy liquid pouring from his wound started to drip from his chin. The drops hit the sink, and Kylo began counting them. When he bowed his head to look at the bandages pulled around his torso, the warm liquid began its sluggish descend over his neck. He tried expanding his chest, filling his lungs, but the bandages were too constricting. Soon, a scarlet stain began to blossom from underneath them at the spot where it hurt the most. It all came to his mind now. The bow was lifted, the shot taken. Kylo twisted his arm to look at the other wound that was sliced near his right shoulder. The traitor. If he had had the time, he would have finished him, he had felt the need to do it, badly. Just a little boy, just one among thousands in the ranks of the First Order, thinking that he could be _more_ , betray everything and leave it all behind.

_Like sparring with your own reflection, with something you could have been. But you killed the light, didn’t you?_

Kylo hated him. His hand balled into a fist and he landed a blow to his sides, right at the rose blossoming from under the bandages. He disfigured it, imprinting all his rage on it until it was just a shapeless red blotch, the pain sending him to the ground. Kylo pulled his knees to his chest on a tight embrace, an instinctive strive for a little bit of comfort he ineffectively tried to resist.

When he looked up from his curled form, he could almost see the slit of light that came from the crack on the door. He is sitting there in the dark like he had been many times before. He is small once again, he is supposed to be in bed once again, for it’s late. They didn’t know he was listening, didn’t know he was shielding himself from every word by hugging his legs and burying half his face on his knees. Only the whites of his eyes gleamed under the disheveled black hair, and he listened attentively to his parents' rushed whispers.

_They speak of you like you are a monster._

They didn’t know about the voices, murmurs at first carried by the wind, soothing lullabies that were sung to him in bed when no one came to kiss him goodnight. They couldn’t have known they were changing into scary commands which he didn’t want to hear anymore, which became more horrifying the more he resisted to them.

_That darkness isn’t your shameful little secret anymore. They know._

In his dreams, Ben walked among ruins. Wherever he looked, the flames rose high from the decaying buildings, his feet strode along the still warm ground and became dirty from the ashes. He stood tall, alone, amongst the destruction. There was no one there to fear him, they were all buried underneath the rubble. The lifeless wreckage was his reign.

_Obey me, and you’ll rule._

Kylo’s legs went limp and tumbled down, he started tearing his bandages apart, pulling them harshly so that they sliced at his skin. The bathroom door was still open, casting the light from the room down on him. He imagined himself walking through it, being engulfed by the brightness and emerging on the other side a sobbing young boy with one braided lock of hair. The boy would rub his eyes before his stunned parents who suddenly stopped whispering.

“Mom, dada” the little boy would have said, his voice would crack and fail but he would get the words out “I need help”

He would, he promises he would, if it weren’t for the tightness in his throat that forbade anything to come out. His was a cursed tongue, not meant to be understood.

_They’ll just lock you up. You saw how they look at you._

After ripping out the bandages, Kylo’s hands dropped by his sides, claw-like, bloodied.

_They hurt. That’s the only thing they’ll ever do._

His eyelids dropped, giving into the sudden light-headedness. Kylo let himself fall, the familiar sensation of weightlessness telling him that, once again, he was becoming unstuck in time.

A holo-screen suddenly flashed before him, the violently vibrant, fast-changing colors suited the overwhelming amount of information being regurgitated on him by the news broadcast. His legs faltered, the headline read:

SENATOR LEIA ORGANA’S DARK PAST: THE DAUGHTER OF DARTH VADER

The answer to all those years asking ‘why’.

_It is your destiny._

Why the rushed whispers.

_It is unescapable._

Why sending him away to Luke.

_You’re a ticking bomb._

The headline shifted when images of the chaotic yelling at the Senate were displayed:

THE SKYWALKER MADNESS

All the unexplainable, disconnected moments of his life finally tied together by a fatalistic string.

_Leading down to me._

A dark shadow rose at Ben’s back, towering over him while drawing painful, mechanical breaths. An invisible weight rested upon his shoulder, a hand to finally guide him, give him purpose. He didn’t want to turn his head. The grip at his shoulder strengthened.

_The potential of your bloodline._

The floating projector burst into sparks, and the holo-screen vanished, leaving Ben in the dark. Kylo became weightless once again, he was pulled against his will to the night he kept revisiting even after all those years. The first thing he felt in the wake of consciousness: his mind being probed into.

He had gotten used to the feeling, Luke thought Ben couldn’t feel him scraping at his mind’s surface while training, but he could, and he could also sense Luke was searching for something specific. Ben knew that by the way the pressure was always poking at the same corners of his mind, and by the way the bad thoughts always came back worse after his uncle’s investigations. Luke was targeting that darkness, Ben felt it, and he never confronted Luke for it. Eventually, Ben thought, Luke could help him understand it. Ben believed that, if he left his mind open, if his uncle could see how so much darkness was within him and that he _still_ didn’t act on it, maybe Luke would believe he was worth saving. That he was not, and would never be, Vader. But Ben never sensed Luke take interest in wandering among the light in his head that kept all the darkness from spilling out.

That night, desperate to fall back into sleep, he heard the crack of the saber at his back.

_Nothing worth saving._

And soon he was roaming aimlessly over ruins, his childhood vision having become reality.

_Inevitable fate._

His white vests covered in ash, his feet burning when stepping on embers, Ben answered the voice for the first time in his life.

_Come to me and fulfill your destiny._

“Yes, master”

 

 

Kylo’s head lolled to the side, what awoke him from his feverish state. He blinked a couple of times, getting used to the brightness reflected by the once sparkling white tiles, now covered in blood and pus. The bathroom looked like the cage of a wounded wild animal. The site of a battle with no winners. Kylo could feel something crawling under his skin, as if it was being shed to give way to _something_ that was emerging from beneath, slow but certain. He restrained his hands by shoving them in between his tights, only to let go when his fingernails went from scratching to lacerating the sensitive skin. Kylo jolted his head up, refusing to look at them, at how beast-like they had become.

_There it is._

 “Hey kid, wanna learn how to pilot this thing?” Ben shook his head no, too afraid of flying too close to the Sun that always swallowed the Falcon when it was time for his dad to go again. After every time the ship disappeared in the blazing horizon, he turned his back to it and always noticed how much better he could _see_.

Kylo was on his feet, one hand leaving a bloody smudge on the white cabinet.

Before the broken circuits of the holo-screen projector, Ben felt a wetness pouring from the oppressive grip at his shoulder. It dampened his white vests on its way down to his hands. Ben looked down at the red stream that cascaded down from the gloved hand right into his in one continuous line. A succession.

_The sins of our fathers…_

“It’s in my blood” Kylo blinked “It’s…” he lunched forward, hitting his shoulder on the door frame as he scrambled out of the confined space of the bathroom. He placed a shaky hand over the sensor of the door to the corridor, its black surface became slippery from the blood and didn’t recognize his digitals. Kylo smashed it and the door finally gave way. His body clashed against the corridor’s wall with a loud thud. Kylo regained his balance and began his walk in the direction of his quarters. His posture was at first erect, but all that purpose faltered, and he soon was hunching down under his own weight.

A nurse, to his left. She must have been warned by all the noise. Kylo outstretched his arm so that his hand was inches away from her face, came the glassy eyes of someone who had forgotten everything she saw in the last few minutes. Kylo advanced on, clinging to his side, dripping blood on his bare feet. He could feel himself turning, leaving a world covered in dark feathers behind.

 

 

Kylo fell down on his knees when he got to his quarters, as soon as he heard the door closing shut behind him. On top of his bed, his burned clothes were neatly folded, no one would dare throwing them away. And besides them, there it was, what he came for.

“Kid, do you wanna learn how to fly this thing?” the voice insisted, Kylo looked up to his father standing in the middle of the room where instants ago there was nothing. Did he come back?

_No one would come back for you._

Was the deed undone? Kylo crawled across the floor, eyes gleaming in contemplation. He curled up awkwardly at his father’s feet, trying to look small and innocent, but his body was not that of a child anymore.

“I want to learn” his voice came out broken, twisted, not his own. He gritted his teeth, tasting blood.

Ben took hold of the controls and disappeared into the night. He left crumpled pillows under his sheets, thinking himself very witty for that little trick. He cut through the skies, gripping so hard at the controls that his knuckles turned white. He could only see darkness, nothing to tell him where the line of the horizon ended and where he would plunge into the black sea. The ship spun and twirled, and no one could see the acrobatics.

“I wanted to be a pilot just like you” Kylo confessed, mumbling from his bowed head. He raised his hand, and retracted it, he hoped his father could see the weapon still laying on the bed, he stretched his fingers again but they closed upon nothing and came back empty. Kylo looked around and found himself alone.

_Those hands hold nothing._

Kylo turned to the bed, mechanically grabbing the saber. The words repeated themselves over and over in his head, and he finally felt he understood their true meaning.

_He ignites it._

Kylo held the weapon at his chest. Finally, the right target.

_And kills his true enemy._

All he could see was the red brightness as it cut through him, it shone like a beacon, it felt like salvation, and his world went dark.

 

Too tired. Why wouldn’t them leave him alone? He needed rest, he needed to keep his eyes closed. But he felt himself shaking violently, forever tormented and denied peace. This was death, he was sure of it, that was the After he deserved. A voice shouted from a distance, echoing many times on twisted cave walls until it reached him.

“I need a med droid!” the voice growled, Kylo tried to get away from it, running towards a nothingness that wouldn’t claim him.

“Kylo” a familiar voice, Kylo frowned in irritation. His eye was forced open and the light burned him. He tried to lift his hands and push the voice away, but they wouldn’t move. His head was cradled, his hair caressed.

Hux was the one who was meant to understand. Why was he taking it all away? Kylo felt his mouth fall open, he needed to make him understand.

“I found…” he coughed, sprinkling Hux’s face with blood “… the cure”

“Kylo, breathe” Kylo could feel a pressure on his chest. The hand over his wound was trying to stop the bleeding, but also stopped the purification. He wasn’t _listening_.

“It was in my blood” Kylo would smile if he could, he thought himself very witty for the little trick he pulled on fate “So I bled” he spat.

Hux pursed his lips. Kylo had never seen him cry before.

“I need a blood transfusion” Hux screamed at somewhere behind his back.

Kylo would like to stay just a little bit longer, just to wipe those tears away, but his hands were useless and now was too late. He shut his eyes, Hux kept pleading him to keep them open, he didn’t know Kylo was concentrating on not falling.

 

 

The first thing Kylo felt was the cold air filling his lungs. It hurt when he parted his lips, the thin skin felt like it was glued together, but he had to speak.

“Why?” he whispered hoarsely to the presence he could barely feel at his side, so drained it was from its vital energy. When Kylo opened his eyes, the lights didn’t blind him as a hand wavered just above his face, shielding them.

No answer came, only a firm squeeze on his hand. Kylo pulled his wrist softly, no binds, nothing. His eyes were uncovered. Hux couldn’t know that his blurred figure was surrounded by light, looking as if he emanated it. Kylo was silent for a moment to take in the vision. Hux wasn’t so patient.

“They did a blood transfusion” his tone was as plain as it could be, as it usually was, but Kylo saw right through his too pale skin and the nervous twitches playing with his nostrils.

“Whose blood is it?” Kylo would be sitting if Hux didn’t hold him down by his shoulder. The pain was nothing compared to what he had just heard. The cursed thing, _gone_ , in something new. He barely cared whose blood it was, it could be from anyone in this ship, as long as it wasn’t his. Hux stared down at Kylo, his features almost gentle. He proceeded to fold his uniform sleeve.

“Mine” he showed the bandage right in the middle of his arm, where his veins ran like rivers under the delicate skin. Hux couldn’t keep Kylo down anymore, he only sighed while the other man took his hand into both of his.

Kylo kept quiet. He listened carefully. He wanted to make sure. It was true. It was true. He heard _nothing_.

“You…” Kylo mumbled.

“I run in you, now” Hux interrupted him, pressing his free hand against Kylo’s colorless cheek “A tiny bit, as you can see, I am fairly smaller in compa…” he stopped when he realized Kylo was trying to reach his lips. Hux hunched down.

“Thank you, _thank you_ ” Kylo let his hands grab at Hux’s uniform, feel his warmness, hold his face close to his, for his hands were human again.

 

 

Hux stared at himself in the mirror in the small bathroom next to Kylo’s bedroom. While the other man slept, he cleaned himself of the sticky bacta that had been smeared on his face during their kiss. Hux thought it would be a struggle to keep Kylo from tearing at his wound again, specially the one on his chest. But, as Kylo fell asleep with ease, Hux saw that was not the same man as the one who had left the med bay in such terrifying state a few days earlier. All it took…

Hux’s reflection stared back, coldly. He pulled the first-aid kit from the shelve above him and proceeded to replace the bandage on his arm. Taking off the old one revealed no needle marks underneath it. Hux covered it up with new gauze.

All it took was a little lie.

“When force wielders desire to live…” the med droid’s metallic voice screeched on Hux’s ears while Kylo was still unconscious “No extra measures are necessary in this case. He will be medicated until his wake, there is nothing mo…” Hux had dismissed it with a deadly gaze. He marched up and down the tiny room until he knew what he had to do.

Hux slid his sleeve over the brand new bandage. He glanced at the mirror again. He knows what he has to do.

 

 

The rigid bed didn’t waver when Hux sat by Kylo’s side, it didn’t wake him up. There was barely room for him to fit in, but he managed to snuggle himself next to Kylo’s form. He knows there’s nothing left to do but to be there when Kylo wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> I really really like comments!
> 
> Come talk to me on twitter! @melkorstars  
> Tell me if you got the reference to Vonnegut's work.


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